A friend of mine, who does not have access to a computer, needed to make reservations for herself, her husband and her 3 year-old child for a trip from AUS-CMH Aug 25 and returning Sept 3 (Labor Day). After checking the schedules, Delta was the best option. So I went to delta.com to make the reservations.

I picked the flights she wanted, but when I went to make the reservation, it told me that EACH passenger must have a SkyMiles account. So I had to go BACK and create a SkyMiles account for her, her husband and the child, even though they probably won't be flying on Delta again during the next 5 years.

And then, to add insult to injury, Delta's website let me pick the flights she wanted, let me enter all three passenger names, and their SkyMiles numbers but only let me get as far as entering the seat selections for the 1st and 2nd legs of the trip. It never did let me continue to the 3rd and 4th legs of the trip, so after about 40 minutes of messing around I finally turned off the computer and called the toll-free number and had a real live person complete the reservations for me.

So my question is, why do you have to be a SkyMiles member to book reservations on-line with Delta? You'd think that Delta would try to make it easy to use their on-line reservations system, but noooooo. They don't. They want your address, your phone number, your date of birth, etc. (I'm surprised they didn't ask for blood type.) All they should be concerned about is what flights you want and how you're going to pay for it. Why do you have to be a SkyMiles memmber to use their on-line resrvations systems? Why not make it easy for customers to book on-like (like Southwest)?